Jim Steinman 1947-2021

[RobL]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56825060

 

 

Wrote some of the best Rock Opera of all time.

 

All the greats seem to be disappearing, we lost Eddie Van Halen recently also.

 

RIP

[Vince1159]

Where do you start...

 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Vince1159

[JPuente54]

Just mention any of the songs from "Bat out of Hell" and you can hear them in your memory. Steinman wrote them great; Meat Loaf sang them great. RIP

[Fifer54]

On Steinman's album Bad for Good he sings a cover (is it a cover when he actually wrote it?) of Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come Through.

Unfortunately he had rather a "lightwieght" "popstar" voice, so it comes across as Sedaka sings Meatloaf!

(No offence intended to Mr Steinman or to Neil Sedaka)

 

https://youtu.be/RTOtCoVqgbs

[Whofan]

Jim Steinman was Spinal Tap's 11 to Phil Spector's wall of sound. You get a flavour of how he worked from this excerpt of an interview I read somewhere of Jim Steinman;

 

“We had that whole song down and it was brilliant. I think Todd felt it was all over. But I was like, "Where's the motorcycle?"J

 

He says, "Oh, you want a motorcycle. A thousand background vocals, a million guitar solos, a ten-minute song … and you want a motorcycle."

"Yeah, I want a motorcycle. Do you have motorcycle sound effects?" He says, "No. I'll do it with my guitar."

 

He went over to his guitar rack and said, "Let's see, motorcycle … here we go." He goes, "I forgot to ask you. Is it a Yamaha, a Kawasaki, or a Harley Davidson?"

 

I said, "Harley-Davidson."

 

"I thought so”.

 

"Why did I even ask?" He goes and adjusts three buttons on his guitar rack and did the motorcycle with his guitar. You hear it rev up, you hear the motor, you hear the fire coming out of it, and you hear it do a wheelie.

 

I thought he was going to stop for gas.”

 

while I think Todd's contribution to Bat out of Hell is wonderful, I ought to give credit to the brilliant piano on the title track, played by Roy Bittan of the E street band)

 

Jim wrote for,  or produced an astonishing range of artistes, from Celine Dion to the Sisters of Mercy (Dominion/Mother Russia) to our Gaynor, Bonnie Tyler.

 

Even better, he wrote and produced the duet between Bonnie and Todd Rundgren, Loving you's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

 

Another notable feature of Steinman's work was that he would recycle songs from different albums into other albums, especially from his solo album Bad for Good - I think every song on that appeared on the other two Bat out of Hell albums, and if course the little known album by his girl group project, Pandora's box called Original sin.

 

Which is actually a great album.

 

He also composed the music for a musical called Tanz der Vampire, which didn't do well in Broadway but went down a storm in Germany.

 

And two songs he composed for the film Streets of fire are very Bat our of hell-esque.

 

All in all, Jim Steinman was a prodigious talent and has a prodigious legacy.

 

Rest in Loudness, Jim.